50 BURPEES EVERY DAY for 30 DAYS

There are no before and after pictures nor weigh-in weights.

To be transparent they were really murpees (modified burpees). I discovered this term a few days ago when I searched for “alternatives for burpees” with the thought of changing to something new once the 30 days were up.

They were hard. I did not always enjoy the doing of them, especially the last four days.

There was no sound track of house music, or pop songs, or affordable music loops that hotel gyms play, only silence, along with the sounds of me being out of breath, and probably making those noises we hate to hear in the gym that are made by others, but never ourselves. ;)

I always changed into gym clothes to have a visual representation of my intention.

My yoga matte tore up my toes. The skin frayed and peeled off in strips. It was painful. I often taped them and/or wore socks.

I frequently procrastinated getting started, sometimes as much as ten minutes. Sometimes I would trick myself into doing them. The most common trick was to start from another place in my condo and walk purposefully into my bedroom, step onto my yoga matte in front of the window and immediately start a hip hinge without any preamble. I never cheated the count.

I counted usually in groups of fives or tens. The Cuisenaire rods were very helpful with that. The last ten on the last day I counted starting with one thousand four hundred and ninety-one. It felt good.

Here’s what happened:

At first I added pushups from the knees. Slowly adding up to 50, one for each murpee. I got to 50 around Day 20. Then I tried pushups from the toes not the knees. I could not do one. Now I can do two. I can lower myself down to touch my nose to the matte but must push myself up from my knees. My forearms are sore.

Somewhere around Day 10 I started doing hollow body curls to failure. I did them after I did the murpees. I did three of them each day. I shook like a leaf at the end before collapsing. I can now hold them for almost a minute each. I found that my neck muscles are sore on a regular basis.

Somewhere around Day 15 I started adding reverse crunches. I did three sets to failure each time. I started with about 5 in each set cheating my way up and down. Now I can do 15-20 per set with less cheating on the way up. My abdomen is sore.

To sum up: I’m sore.

To assess: My quads are more defined. My triceps are more defined. My forearms are firmer. I got faster at doing them but I think that is because I took fewer breaks, eventually being able to do all 50 in one go.

I AM HAPPY TO STOP DOING THEM.

Vague action plan: Change the routine, try something new. Don’t stop doing something everyday.

SMART action plan: I will do three sets of two exercises at ten+ reps each for 30 days starting on April 19th: whole body extensions and inclined mountain climbers with glute extensions. I’ll be breaking out some new colors for my Cuisenaire Rod counters. Stay tuned